Previously on 2015 SEA Trip: After visiting Bandung, Kuala Lumpur, and Langkawi, Zilko and his friends went to Singapore. Two days in Singapore, now they were ready to hop to the last stop of this trip: Johor Bahru.

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Getting to Johor

After some research, to go to Johor we decided to use the MRT – bus combination from Singapore. We took the North South line to Kranji and then transfered to a bus to Johor. It took about 1 hour from our hostel in Chinatown to Kranji. And then after queuing for some 15 minutes (the line was long but it actually went quite quickly once the buses came), we got to our bus. Btw, we arrived at Kranji at around 3 PM to beat the evening rush hour, which we heard it would have been extremely crowded.

Woodlands checkpoint of Singapore

With the bus, we had to stop twice. The first one was at the Singapore immigration checkpoint, then we took the bus again, then the second one was after we crossed the Causeway Bay at the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar (the Sultan Iskandar building) in Johor for the Malaysian one. Yeah, it was my first time ever crossing a land border in Southeast Asia! Haha😆 .

Johor Bahru

Bangunan Sultan Iskandar was connected to a mall in Johor Bahru: the Johor City Square. Because it was already around 4 PM, we decided to spend our time in the mall first before going to the hotel. It turned out we found nothing that interesting there, even in the food court! So we just sat and played some card games there to kill some time, lol😆 . Then we had dinner at a KFC restaurant (which I am glad of because it was my first time trying out a Malaysian KFC I believe😀 ) before watching Fantastic Four at the cinema. Speaking of the movie, IMO it was a very horrible movie despite its promising opening. Too bad😦 .

A neighborhood in Johor Bahru

Another mall that we visited in Johor was the AEON mall. Again, it was a bit “meh” especially for Indonesian standard. The supermarket there, however, was quite good.

Legoland Malaysia

Our main agenda in Johor Bahru (aside from flying back to Yogyakarta which we found the ticket price was half of the ticket departing from Singapore, haha😆 ) was the Legoland Malaysia. We already bought the ticket beforehand so we got a 20% discout of the normal price.

Darth Vader made from lego at Legoland

It was a hot day in Legoland today. But at least it was a Tuesday so the theme park was not very crowded at all, haha😆 . And it was good! Being a Legoland, of course the most impressive thing for me was the stuffs they built from legos! It was just super amazing that they could do that! There were many rides too but the rides were, well, more for kids, we think🙂 . And another disappointing thing was that some of the rides were under maintenance today. But maybe this had something to do with us visiting on a Tuesday.

However, the most fun attraction at Legoland was actually the lab. So there was this “lab” where we were tasked to program a robot to finish some tasks!! Yes, to PROGRAM a ROBOT!! Super cool!! And we could join the adult session too so the tasks were more complicated (though IMO not so much😛 ). Here are two clips of my programmed robot doing its programmed task by me:

Fun!!

The Food

Our favorite place to eat in Johor was actually near our hotel in the region of Skudai. So there was this place which looked like a mini food court but with some different street food stalls! In our two nights there, we had both our dinners there, haha😆 . There were so many interesting choices and their pricing was quite affordable too. I had an oyster omelette and salted-egged squid dishes there.

Our favorite food stalls market in Johor Bahru

Another place that I liked was actually a noodles restaurant just beneath our hotel. They served, well, noodles dish for breakfast which was quite good🙂 . The dish involved (red) roasted pork as well so it kinda reminded me of a pork noodles dish at Mie 90 that I had in Makassar the year before :D . But actually I still preferred Mie 90 in Makassar though, hehe😛 .

Scheduled at 12:15 PM from Senai International Airport in Johor Bahru, we took our time in the morning. We had time for a quick breakfast at the aforementioned noodles restaurant just beneath our hotel. Long story short, we took a taxi to go to the airport which turned out to be quite some distance from Johor Bahru. We checked-in, passed the security check and immigration desk, and we were already in the departure gate.

At around 11:45 AM, our airplane arrived from its morning flight from Ho Chi Minh City. It was an Airbus A320-216 reg 9M-AQP. At around noon, we started boarding the plane which I found funny because air-bridges actually existed at the airport but AirAsia did not use it, haha😆 . So we had to go down the stairs and boarded the plane with the normal stairs. Well, I actually prefer it this way though😛 .

An AirAsia’s Airbus A320-200 reg 9M-AQP which brought us to Yogyakarta as flight AK 492 today

Anyway, we took off from runway 16 of Senai International Airport. Not long after take-off, the FAs started distributing my pre-ordered meal: nasi lemak. So this Instagram’s post of Mamiefunky made me want to try AirAsia’s nasi lemak. So I did, haha😆 . It turned out to be good!🙂

As with other LCC flights, it was a very uneventful 2 hours and 20 minutes flight from Johor Bahru to Yogyakarta. Upon approaching Adisucipto Airport though, we were put on hold above the Menoreh mountain in Kulon Progo due to, I guess, the crowdedness of the airport. After circling around for like five times, we were given the clearance to land at my favorite runway for landing at Yogyakarta: runway 09. Here is the landing video:

New Terminal of Adisucipto Airport

Btw, since days before the flight, we got constant email reminders from AirAsia regarding their operational change at Adisucipto. So, two days earlier, a new terminal, Terminal B, was opened for service, and we were going to use this terminal!! YAY!!! I was super excited!!😀

The brand new Terminal B of Adisucipto International Airport

9M-AQP exited the runway at the N2 exit way and then parked at the brand new apron number 9 at Adisucipto Airport which was just in front of the brand new Terminal B! We got off the plane and I saw a lot of people also taking pictures of the new terminal, haha. We passed the new immigration desks (there were six). The luggage room was also much better (roomier as well) than the old international terminal🙂 .

Btw, I found it strange that they only had one extra apron at the airport while technically there was room for at least two or three more just outside Terminal B. So now, IMO, the airport scheme looked weird because just outside Terminal B, only ONE plane could park at a time, haha😆 .

Anyway, my brother picked me up at the airport and we headed for the Tojoyo Fried Chicken for a late lunch in the city. Here, my 2015 SEA Trip officially ended.